Moody Madge snubs Oscar winner Ang Lee

Madonna was in a foul mood and, according to several witnesses, ‘behaved like a b****’ at an exclusive Beverly Hills party, snubbing Oscar-winning director Ang Lee.

The list of guests who attended the Creative Artists Agency’s (CAA) pre-Oscar reception at the imposing Greystone Mansion included Leonardo DiCaprio, Anne Hathaway, Bradley Cooper, P. Diddy, Lionel Richie, Jennifer Aniston and the great and the good of the film world from both sides of the Atlantic.

Generally, people are gracious at such events, even to those they loathe. And that spirit of bonhomie was encouraged further by the lovely atmosphere: the wine and champagne was flowing, the food (catered by the restaurant Lure) was delicious.

Moody Madge: Madonna, pictured left in a picture posted on Instagram, snapped at Life Of Pi director Ang Lee, pictured right holding his Oscar for Best Director, when he introduced himself at a pre-Oscar reception

But something was clearly bugging Madonna. She snapped at Life Of Pi director Ang Lee when he introduced himself and tried to initiate a conversation. ‘I’m not interested,’ she was heard to respond.

The famously polite Lee, who a couple of nights later would pick up his second best director Oscar for filming a book many deemed unfilmable, valiantly tried again. But Madonna turned her back and ignored him.

‘It was incredible — she stormed around as if a black cloud was following her and then she was gone. Everyone wants to know what bug got up her a***,’ a British film executive who attended the soiree told me.

Another guest who observed Madonna at the event said he was surprised at her behaviour.

‘She was just rude to most people she came into contact with. She really behaved like a b**** that night,’ he told me.

A couple of weeks back, Madonna was named the biggest money-making rock star of 2012, so you might have expected her to be still riding on a high from that bit of news.

One incredibly wicked person did wonder if someone had tried to give the star advice on how she should have edited her movie W.E.

Now that, I know, would have sent her up the wall.

A colleague who works with Madonna said the star was 'in her best mood' at the CAA party.

'It's not unusual that people might find her a b***. She's not walking the room, smiling like Kelly Ripa. She's not a prom queen.'

The colleague added: 'She was not rude, though she could have potentially made someone feel that they shouldn't say Hello to her, and that wasn't intentional, and perhaps some people might have thought she didn't seem approachable that night. And she didn't leave in a huff.'

She also denied that Madonna had been rude to Ang Lee and said she had invited the director to her own party on Oscar night.

Jennifer's firmly in the sights of the men from uncle

It's like the battle for Jennifer: everyone is desperate to work with Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence.

What many leading men have realised is that she can give them heat. Bradley Cooper was always going to be terrific in Silver Linings Playbook, but Jennifer (and director David O. Russell) made him better.

She’s a proper actress, meaning she can cover any genre and isn’t just there to be the eye candy.

I mentioned a while back that Harvey Weinstein wants her to be in the epic The Ends Of The Earth, based on a screenplay by Chris Terrio (who won an Oscar for Argo), about an oil billionaire who falls in love with his adopted niece.

In high demand: Jennifer Lawrence has a fully-booked filming schedule for the next two years

Weinstein wants Russell to reunite with Jennifer to make the film. Names being bandied about, at the Chateau Marmont's Grey Goose party last Saturday night, in terms of who could play the uncle/adopted father included Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. Though I hear Russell favours his frequent collaborator, Christian Bale.

Russell’s argument, I’m told, is that the ‘uncle’ needs to be played by an actor who can get right under the character’s skin, and Bale would certainly suit the rough and tumble of the Twenties era in which the film is set.

He and Jennifer would be dynamite together.

She has something of the tough grit of, say, Barbara Stanwyck, about her.

And Bale? He can be whatever — and whoever — he wants.

There’s still a lot of negotiating to do on the film, including how to make the potentially ‘icky’ nature of the central relationship work.

Then there’s the scheduling. Jennifer told me she’s booked for the next two years and would have to carve out a gap between X Men: Days Of Future Past and the third Hunger Games film, Mockingjay, being shot and released in two parts, in order to do the project.

Her availability would then have to be matched with Russell’s — and whoever turns out to be her leading man.

No doubt, some of this was being discussed at the Vanity Fair Oscars party, where many of the principals intersected over cocktails and famed In-N-Out hamburgers.

Adele makes a date with the divas

One of the great moments at the Governors Ball, held after the Oscar ceremony, was watching Barbra Streisand, Dame Shirley Bassey and Adele chin-wagging together and whooping it up over the best song award Adele won with Paul Epworth.

Adele told me she planned to spend another ten days in LA, dividing her time between meetings and ‘having some laughs’.

She said she very much wants to make a third album, to follow 19 and 21. I said we’re all desperate to hear it and she responded: ‘Tell me about it, so am I.’

First, though, she has to sit down and write the songs. ‘They’ll come when they’re ready, and when I’ve got something to sing about.’ Streisand and Dame Shirley certainly imparted plenty of wisdom about how to survive in the crazy business she has chosen.

Later, I watched Dame Shirley being feted like a long-lost queen at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party.She rolled up with Adele and her beau Simon Konecki and pretty soon they were being swooned over by the likes of Bono, Jimmy Buffett, T-Bone Burnett, Suzanne de Passe (a force at Motown), Quincy Jones, Elton John and David Furnish, John Legend and Steven Tyler.

The big question being asked was why she had waited half a century to rock the Oscars and bring the audience to its feet.

She laughed. ‘I’ve had the time of my life, and this has been a dream come true,’ she told me. Ditto.